Rouhani: Trump cannot reverse nuclear deal

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks during a joint-press conference at the presidential palace in Hanoi on Oct. 6, 2016. (AFP)

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said there was "no possibility" of its nuclear deal with world powers being overturned by US president-elect Donald Trump despite his threat to rip it up.


Also read: UN report notes minor Iranian violation of nuclear deal


During the election campaign, Trump described the deal as "disastrous" and said it would be his "number one priority" to dismantle it.

Rouhani, a moderate who has pushed for closer ties with the West, said the United States' standing in the world had been weakened due to its "wrong policies".

"The United States no longer has the capacity to create Iranophobia and to create a consensus against Iran," he said.


Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister called Wednesday on Trump to stick to international agreements regarding the nuclear deal with Tehran.

“Every US president has to understand the realities of today’s world. The most important thing is that the future US president stick to agreements, to engagements undertaken,” Mohammad Javad Zarif said in Romania.

Tehran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and has so far met its obligations under the deal, but supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said he would happily “burn” the agreement if Trump decides to tear it up.

Some Iranians believe the US president-elect will not make good on his threat.

“The Trump of the campaign is different to Trump the president,” said Allaeddine Borujerdi, chairman of parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

“It is natural that the American president is constrained by international rules and must apply them, notably on the nuclear deal,” the ISNA news agency quoted him as saying.

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation said it was prepared for any eventuality.

“We have defined our nuclear programin such a way that we can continue in any situation,” spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told the state broadcaster.

The deputy commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, said it made no difference to Iran who was in the White House.

“When the Republicans were in power, they threatened us and showed their hostility... and when the Democrats were in power, the policies of the United States were the same,” Salami told the Fars news agency.

Iran says the United States has not stuck to the spirit of the nuclear deal since it came into force in January, because a raft of unilateral US sanctions remain in place that have left it frozen out of the international banking system.

The US Congress is due to vote next month on whether to renew those sanctions, which are linked to Iran’s human rights record and ballistic missile tests.
